1. Field
One embodiment of the present invention relates to an electronic device equipped with an antenna used for radio communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2003-209482 discloses a folding mobile terminal with a built-in GPS antenna. The mobile terminal includes an operation portion, a display portion open/closed with respect to the operation portion, a GPS antenna housed inside the display portion and a pivot mechanism which pivots the portion where the GPS antenna is mounted. The pivot mechanism is installed within the display portion, and it includes a slide member which slides as interlocked with the opening/closing of the display portion and a conversion member which converts the sliding motion of the slide member into a rotating motion.
In this mobile terminal, the slide member and conversion member actuate as the display portion is opened or closed and thus the direction of the GPS antenna is pivoted by 180 degrees. In this manner, the direction of the GPS antenna is optimized at all times.
It should be noted here that in short-distance radio communications of recent years, there is, for example, Transfer Jet (registered trademark) as a standard for radio communications of the type in which the limitation of communication distance is very strict. In the radio communications of this communication standard, the distance in which communications can be established between instruments is only several centimeters. For this reason, if the antenna is not set in an appropriate direction, radio communications cannot be established well in some cases. Further, there are increasing trends in which the style of radio communications between electronic devices diversifies, and therefore merely pivoting the antenna as interlocked with the opening/closing of the display portion as discussed above cannot follow such various styles of radio communication modes sufficiently. Furthermore, in electronic devices of recent years, there is a trend of thinning the devices by controlling the thickness. Here, if a pivot mechanism is installed simply inside the display portion, the thickness of the device is increased. Under these circumstances, the above-described structure cannot be directly employed.